Home Chicago Bulls Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Its still early ..only 15 games in....so still time to do an experimental swap out of Bynum and Singler with Siva and Gigi/CV. I know it's stretch and a test, but Bynum and Singler played a combined 7 minutes on Monday and we won that game in a blowout. Granted, the Nets and Bulls are two different teams, but there is no way we should have lost tonights game by 20 points. Even if we were not scoring, they went through Singler as if he was sitting on the bench. Funny how we saw it and the Bulls saw it, but the coaches didn't see it.

I agree with you Lee on Mitchell. How much worse can he be than the other rookie Pope? Pope is getting PT based on his defensive ability and missing shots. Mitchel's D can't be that bad can it? lt appears that he can clean up around the hoop with an alley oop catch and even fight for an offensive board if out there, but we have only seen him in 3 or 4 GT opportunities.

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Mitchell fighting for rebounds. I do not know if you could call it a fight. Mitchell snatched each of his two rebounds like taking candy from a baby. No fighting involved. I said they were contested rebounds, and they were, but the other contestants stood no chance.

On offense:
Da'Bulls had our number defensively. They knew to keep Dre off the Boards and to take away the lob.....most teams know this but few can actually do it, Da'Bulls have the strength and mental toughness to stick to Thibodeaus game plan. As big as we are upfront we have a serious issue in terms of freeing our guys up with screens. Dre and Moose should be clearing guys out! There's no reason why KCP, Singler and Stuckey shouldn't coming off pin downs wide open. Dyes, Ben and Sheed were great screeners.
Jennings was back into dribble, dribble, dribble and dribble some more mode.
They took the heart right out of our frontline. Dre and Moose would set high ball screens for Jennings and then just kind of stand there, grant it.....it's not like Jennings has effectively executed the screen roll, but geez is it too much to ask for our bigs to set a screen and roll hard to the basket to force the help defense to rotate? Once you start making a defense move you may be able to get them out of position.
They conceded the jumper to us and well we failed to make or even take them. Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings still have yet to realize why they're always open on the perimeter.

Defensively:
Da'Bulls screen A LOT! Over the course of a game it gets to be exhausting and ultimately guys simply stop fighting through and over them. In the 2nd half we simply quit. Not to mention they crash the boards HARD forcing you to box out, again, more physicality that just grinds the energy out of you. It looked like we were playing a running team in football that just beats you up in the trenches, makes you quit and in the 2nd half starts thrashing you for 10 yard runs. It was actually a thing of beauty to watch. Against this team our frontline has absolutely no advantage. Noah while he is smaller than Dre will fight and battle him ALL NIGHT LONG, won't back down and won't make a mistake in terms of keeping Dre off the offensive glass. Boozer and Gibson will stand toe to toe with Monroe all night long too, and both have the ability to make jump shots and we all know that our bigs do not like to get out on shooters and get a hand up. Deng is a better SF than Smith and moves well off the ball, and we all know that Josh is a terrible off the ball defender against SF's, he doesn't chase guys well- he's so big that he's VERY easy to screen and pick. They're just a VERY bad matchup for us because they have the personnel to negate our strengths.

In the long run. Moose and Smith HAVE to be able to knock down mid-range shots at the elbows and along the baseline. Our frontline has to take pride in being able to set a great screen- on and off the ball. Jennings has to stop dancing with the ball so much. We have to do a better job of staying with guys on defense against good screening teams. Ultimately we need an upgrade over Singler, I think Jeff Green (or Wilson Chandler) is the guy(s) to help get us to the next level- the 2nd round of the playoffs.

Nope. All rookie team and 1 time all defensive 2nd team. The guy is far from a superstud - although the SF position is stacked outside of Detroit. But he is a solid player at the 3. And he is consistently good there.

I'm trying to be objective here, but that isn't a bad trade in my eyes. It still gives them a big expiring to chase FA's next season, plus the immediate cap relief to get under the tax. We know the owner is a bit stingy and doesn't like paying tax.

Villenueva isn't the player that they are desperately wanting. He is just there to cap fill and give them a big expiring. Maybe toss in our second rounder next year. Singler is good for 15mpg. Bynum is good for 20mpg if you want to play him that much and he can create his own shot and cause defences to collapse. He is perfect as a spark plug off the bench.

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He was an All Star last year.

The Bulls kept getting contributions from players the Pistons looked like they’d never seen before, like Deng, an All-Star, and Gibson, one of the league’s most energetic bench players.

In the long run. Moose and Smith HAVE to be able to knock down mid-range shots at the elbows and along the baseline. Our frontline has to take pride in being able to set a great screen- on and off the ball. Jennings has to stop dancing with the ball so much. We have to do a better job of staying with guys on defense against good screening teams. Ultimately we need an upgrade over Singler, I think Jeff Green (or Wilson Chandler) is the guy(s) to help get us to the next level- the 2nd round of the playoffs.

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I really hate watching Moose get pushed off the block, to about that 9 to 12 foot range, get thrown the ball, watch him face up the defender and the defender laughing in his face. Dude, square your man up, give him a jab step and rise up and shoot the rock. Use the backboard man...He needs to watch Timmy Duncan film from about 8 years ago, play those videos night after night while you're falling asleep, SOMETHING! His game is nothing with out that mid range jumper, because he just isn't strong enough to get deep post position deep into the game, when we need him to score, and slow the game down. It's really pathetic.

On offense:
Da'Bulls had our number defensively. They knew to keep Dre off the Boards and to take away the lob.....most teams know this but few can actually do it, Da'Bulls have the strength and mental toughness to stick to Thibodeaus game plan. As big as we are upfront we have a serious issue in terms of freeing our guys up with screens. Dre and Moose should be clearing guys out! There's no reason why KCP, Singler and Stuckey shouldn't coming off pin downs wide open. Dyes, Ben and Sheed were great screeners.
Jennings was back into dribble, dribble, dribble and dribble some more mode.
They took the heart right out of our frontline. Dre and Moose would set high ball screens for Jennings and then just kind of stand there, grant it.....it's not like Jennings has effectively executed the screen roll, but geez is it too much to ask for our bigs to set a screen and roll hard to the basket to force the help defense to rotate? Once you start making a defense move you may be able to get them out of position.
They conceded the jumper to us and well we failed to make or even take them. Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings still have yet to realize why they're always open on the perimeter.

Defensively:
Da'Bulls screen A LOT! Over the course of a game it gets to be exhausting and ultimately guys simply stop fighting through and over them. In the 2nd half we simply quit. Not to mention they crash the boards HARD forcing you to box out, again, more physicality that just grinds the energy out of you. It looked like we were playing a running team in football that just beats you up in the trenches, makes you quit and in the 2nd half starts thrashing you for 10 yard runs. It was actually a thing of beauty to watch. Against this team our frontline has absolutely no advantage. Noah while he is smaller than Dre will fight and battle him ALL NIGHT LONG, won't back down and won't make a mistake in terms of keeping Dre off the offensive glass. Boozer and Gibson will stand toe to toe with Monroe all night long too, and both have the ability to make jump shots and we all know that our bigs do not like to get out on shooters and get a hand up. Deng is a better SF than Smith and moves well off the ball, and we all know that Josh is a terrible off the ball defender against SF's, he doesn't chase guys well- he's so big that he's VERY easy to screen and pick. They're just a VERY bad matchup for us because they have the personnel to negate our strengths.

In the long run. Moose and Smith HAVE to be able to knock down mid-range shots at the elbows and along the baseline. Our frontline has to take pride in being able to set a great screen- on and off the ball. Jennings has to stop dancing with the ball so much. We have to do a better job of staying with guys on defense against good screening teams. Ultimately we need an upgrade over Singler, I think Jeff Green (or Wilson Chandler) is the guy(s) to help get us to the next level- the 2nd round of the playoffs.

While yours is a good take on the game, there are other ways to look at it. Our starters eked out a lead, about 4 points, before we made any substitutions. Then our bench started rotating in, while theirs did also. Our bench did feature Stuckey, but it also featured Bynum who has clue none on what to do with the ball. It featured Singler and Harrellson up front, giving us both a too slow, and too small front line. Drummond was out there too in that early 2nd quarter, but he can not do it all by himself on defense. In contrast, Chicago brought the likes of Gibson out there. See the problem? Our lead vanished, and we got in a hole a bit. Our starters all came back in, except Stuckey stayed out there instead of Pope. And we dug out of the hole, and got another lead. At one point, our starters were plus 15 in the first half (if counting Stuckey as a starter.) Now, as you know, some teams just do not shoot quite as straight under pressure. It would have been nice if Chicago felt some pressure. Instead, they knew our coach. They do have scouts. They knew we would feature the same bench in the 2nd half pretty much - and they knew there was really no pressure to be expected from the Pistons. At half time, instead of us being up big, it was a virtually tied game. As this game is about adjustments, it would have been nice to have had Chicago needing something to adjust to, like how to score more points. Instead, they spent all their time at half time working out a few kinks in their defense, and that was all she wrote.

I was out and fretting the whole time because I did not set the dvr to record the 7:30 game. Raced home in the pouring down rain so I would not miss anything from this game I fully expected to be fun to watch with a win. Just goes to show how dumb I was........

Touché, but he still had a few steals. Also while he didn't do anything to help us win, he didn't do anything to help us lose in his 19 minutes of play.

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This is not to pick on Pope, who is just a rookie, and will probably be a fine player, but during stretches when the first team struggled to score, Pope is a dead spot offensively. The shooting guards in the NBA, as you know, usually put up good numbers, night in and night out.

Of course, Monroe did nothing offensively either. So it is not just Pope. And the idea of having a shooting point guard, Jennings, is that the guard can score during tough patches. Jennings didn't help either. That is why this team should already be going down low to Andre, who, at least makes things happen. Otherwise, it has to find a way to let Monroe be effective.

This all points to a lack of offensive system and purpose as many have noted.

And on defense, the effort is not there often enough. If this team was 6-9 losing as a defensive team, you could live with it. But that record is not acceptable in a water-downed league.

I don't want to pick on Pope at all. I'd love for him to be great. But the kid is having serious problems putting the ball in the hoop with any consistency, and this is not just one or three games. He's had like what, 2 good shooting games including the preseason?

We have spacing issues, and without someone who can shoot consistently from LR (and that's not BJ) the SG needs to do it. We've seen Josh Smith jack up shots, and it's not pretty.

Singler, JJ not true shooters. Jorts, at a logjam position although he can shoot. Charlie V @ the 3? Datome? What does an Italian league MVP need to get into the game before Tony "Don't call me Braxton" Mitchell?

This is not to pick on Pope, who is just a rookie, and will probably be a fine player, but during stretches when the first team struggled to score, Pope is a dead spot offensively. The shooting guards in the NBA, as you know, usually put up good numbers, night in and night out.

Of course, Monroe did nothing offensively either. So it is not just Pope. And the idea of having a shooting point guard, Jennings, is that the guard can score during tough patches. Jennings didn't help either. That is why this team should already be going down low to Andre, who, at least makes things happen. Otherwise, it has to find a way to let Monroe be effective.

This all points to a lack of offensive system and purpose as many have noted.

And on defense, the effort is not there often enough. If this team was 6-9 losing as a defensive team, you could live with it. But that record is not acceptable in a water-downed league.

Coaching loss big time. We were playing well in this for long periods yet Mo decided some rotations were working despite letting the Bulls go on extended runs, including 6 mintues in the 4th!

I'm with Lee on this one - ball-hog-Bynum is the biggest momentum killer in the league. Starting the second, his turnover, poor shots, bad defence and all round "why-the-hell-is-he-still-on-the-court" play was TERRIBLE. So what does Mo do? Keep him in the game in the 4th until the 6th minute, because he made 1 (that's one, un, uno, ein), one bloody pass to Drummond.
When (if) Billups gets back, we need to shorten the guard rotation to 3 or preferably trade him out as soon as possible. Now that we have a somewhat respectable team, his short comings are even more glaring. I would even shop him before CV.

The Despicable Me minion was pretty much non-existent again, yet he gets nearly as many minutes as Smith. Our $54m signing.

Good game from a few others and decent defence for the most part (except for letting Deng get anywhere he wanted on the court in the last), but I am so angry that we were looking so strong for the most part in this game and let it get to 20 points. Mo, this one is on you.

Totally agree with KGREG on the poor screen setting and hitafreethrow on Monroe's post ups. Against Milwaukee he was running down the court to get that spot, but because he had guys that would fight against it this time, he just gives up. HATE his lack of effort on the court - "You're playing in the NBA. It's not going to be easy you nonce!!!".